Sensitivity of Humanity
by onemakaveli96
Summary: So far as any decent human being was concerned, he was anything but a decent human being...He's confined in a tin suit, armed only with his regrets. Zero centric oneshot.


**Title:** Sensitivity of Humanity  
**Summary:** He's confined in a tin suit, armed only with his regrets.  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine.  
**Notes:** F_lashbacks are in italics_, and this could be considered a companion piece to **Sensitivity of Attraction**. The two work awesomely together, but stand well on their own. Anywho, reviews are love, and if anything, I hope you** ENJOY**.

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The crackling skies and pouring clouds indicate the freezing night ahead of him in that already cold tin suit. He knows he brought it on himself, knows he deserves to be slaughtered like the animal he acted as under the rule of the queen. Instead, revenge was exacted in the form of a tin suit from which he had come to believe he would never be freed from.

Losing count of the days, he can only estimate that he has been trapped in the suit for about three weeks. No passerby, no noises, only trees surrounding his view. He had hoped someone would pass by, but the last he saw of someone was that day the resistors had packed up and left him to be in confined solitude.

Alone with his thoughts, hoping against hope that someone would pass by and release him, but thus far he has had no such luck. So he has had no choice but to contemplate his thoughts, actions, and the state of the kingdom. He could only assume the resistors had won back the kingdom, otherwise the sorceress would have sent someone or something searching for him. Then again, the sorceress would probably not waste so much time and effort on an individual not being the princess D.G.

Though he had come to feel an attraction of sorts towards the sorceress, Zero had it clear in his mind that any relationship that extended beyond that of professionalism were trivial to her. As such, whatever compassion and intrigue that compelled him to get closer to the queen was to be annihilated by cold and distant behavior.

Why then was it that he spent so much time in the tin suit pondering about the queen, and their non-existent relationship was beyond the man. Therefore, he decided to concentrate on the numbers pounding through his head, rather than that woman that still was driving him insane.

Zero knew the exact number of families he had broken, the exact number of men he had imprisoned in tin suits, and the exact number of individuals who had threatened to exact revenge on him.

The number of people he had killed had escaped him when he entered his first major battle with the resistors, and could only estimate that the number lied dangerously close to the mid 100s.

These numbers have always made his jaw clench, fist curl, head jerk in confusion as to the pain he was inflicting. The Outer Zone was his home, where he had been born and raised, and the obliteration of fine gardens, parks, and villages had not been feats easy to witness. Yet, they were feats, conquests that had been powered by moments of his anger, his confusion, his selfish fear.

So far as any decent human being was concerned, he was anything but a decent human being.

And it was far too hypocritical for him to regret all of these things now. Now that he had no choice, but to forever lie in purgatory, did he torture himself for his mistakes. The grandest mistake being his refusal to confront the sorceress Azkadellia.

It could have been his chance at redemption--marching up to the sorceress, deeming her actions immoral, and refusing to partake in the madness of it all for any longer. If only it weren't for the fact that he had an incessant need to please her. That and his itch to live.

As the lightning bolt strikes a tree, forcing a fire, Zero vividly remembers the moment he first saw a light of humanity in Azkadellia's eyes. A light that proved that she was in fact that same girl with whom he played with as a small child.

The fact that once upon a time Zero and little princess Azkadellia would run through a maze, playing tag, and do anything else children might do is a fact Zero has labeled as childish, immature notions of an innocent time far from important. The fact that Zero's father moved their family to another corner of the O.Z. as instructed by the queen to regulate a town corrupted with self-importance, thus distancing Zero and the queen's family for many annuals, is a fact Zero had kept to remind himself exactly from whence he captured the notion of corruption. He witnessed the corruption of that town, saw law thrown to the dogs, forcing Zero and his family to keep quiet and pretend law was in order.

And now, in this tin suit, the coward in him wants to blame this town for his own corruption--after all, he was only a child, and his father had always told him to be a man in every sense of the word, because everything was a battle of the survival of the fittest.

However, he cannot use this town to justify his actions, this he sees in the rain pounding on the tin suit in which he is locked. The rain that thuds and slides down the suit, making him shiver, and the small fire from the leaves thundered upon remind him of the day he saw Azkadellia again after nearly ten annuals gone.

He had laid low for awhile after the queen's disappearance, then joined the tin men to maintain order in a dissolving land, and finally joined the Longcoats when he'd heard the stories of those who questioned the new queen's authority. Slowly, his standing had acclimated, until the queen ordered for Zero to be brought in.

This had led him to the queen's castle that centered the kingdom. He knocked on the kingdom's door, and he was led by the maid to the (by default) queen. He'd heard various rumors of her beauty, from the length of her legs, to the roundness of her hips, from her well-endowed bosom, to her illustrious lips. But no illustration, no matter the exaggeration, could have prepared him for the magnificent creature that turned to meet him with a steely gaze.

He still had in his mind that ten year old girl who laughed with her baby sister, had a projection of what she might look like with her features matured. The fabled illustrations and his imagination paled in comparison to the reality that stood before him with an inspecting gaze. Her skin was fair, she was quite tall for a woman, her hair looked like the finest of black silks, and the dress accentuated her assets to the point where he had practically no need for imagination. Time had done her well. Or so it had appeared.

She had ushered the help out, given him a look-over, remained quiet for a minute or so, until she broke into a smile that he could never remember her having. No, this smile of hers did not look nor feel like hers, and her eyes glistened with a warning of trouble.

--

_"Zero," she welcomed him with a sly grin._

_"Your highness," he said with the tone of a well-trained soldier, bowing to her._

_"It seems like so long that we've gone from seeing one another," she noted, speaking more to herself than him. _

_"What has kept you from my home so long?" she cocked an eyebrow at him._

_"The shift in the throne has caused a rift that does not allow for leisurely visits, my highness," he was curt._

_"No time for fun and games, you mean," she stated. _

_He nodded to her, feeling uneasy in her presence._

_"Good," she rested a hand on her hip and pursed her lips," then you understand the frailty with which I, along with my men, must work in the O.Z."_

_"Yes, my queen."_

_"Sorceress," she corrected him, a smirk on her lips, "You, as well as whatever personal works under me, are to call me sorceress.," she turned a cold gaze to him, and Zero could read something in her eyes that he never would have associated with Azkadellia._

_"You understand me," she stated rather than questioned._

_"Yes," he bit his tongue," Sorceress."_

_She smirked freely now, and Zero knew from there that she was hiding something grand. _

_"These ten annuals have boded well for your discipline, Zero," she turned her back to him, "no longer are you the immature boy, son of a guard, who attempted to play games with the princess."_

_He felt a bit of fury building in this statement of hers--this woman before him, plaid in a showy dark dress could not be the same girl from ten annuals ago. Power had indeed corrupted her._

_"Therefore, I deem you equipped enough to be a general in my personal arm of Longcoats," she turned to face him again._

_Even with the clear sign of trouble, Zero could not help from grinning._

_"You may go on your way," she nodded her head, and turned her back again._

_He went on his way, pleased to have his abilities recognized, grateful to be in good standing with a woman who could kill him a second's notice._

--

For three years he had ignored her obvious madness, had executed any and every of her orders, and remained in good standing. He thought he'd get another promotion soon, with a promise of greater compensation.

Instead, one day, he wandered in what he thought to be the abandoned levels of the kingdom, basking in a moment of solitude. Remembering the large library that once was vibrant with life, he opened the grand doors without knocking. What problem would it be anyhow? From the looks of it, that floor had seemed obstinate.

This assumption proved wrong when he walked in on the queen sitting on a lounge chair, gaze distant, skin pale, and she almost looked frozen in time.

--

_"I apologize, Sorceress. I was not aware--"_

_"Zero?" she spoke in a tone he had not heard in thirteen annuals. Her eyes looked him over cautiously, and in there, he saw that glint of malice gone, and instead the light of life little princess Azkadellia was known throughout the kingdom for._

_"Wha--?" she shook her head, as though clearing her mind._

_"You alright, Sorceress?"_

_At his question, she closed her eyes, and she bent her head down._

_"Sorceress...?," she said in a deep breath, then briskly, "Yes, now leave me be, Zero."_

_Deciding he had seen enough, he took heed of her order and closed the library doors behind him. He stood outside for a moment, wondering just what he had been witness to. _

_She had looked vulnerable, even afraid in that instant, and he took with him the thought that perhaps a part of that girl he once knew still existed. He could sympathize with her in this aspect, as he knew corruption far too well.  
--_

It was this emotion, combined with him finding Azkadellia's beauty to be growing by the annual, that had him attracted to her. It was the fact that the attraction (being mutual) delayed any promotions, and the climb had been slow and frustrating. The higher on the food chain he became, the closer in proximity he was to her, and the more she spewed at him with anger and threats.

Still, as he was witness to the thunder subsiding and rain overtaking, prodding the small fires into the ground, he knew that if anything, Azkadellia's outward anger towards him was only a show. That anger came on behalf of corruption, not the individual that still dwelled somewhere in her.

This brought him to acknowledge why he thought of Azkadellia so frequently in the tin suit--because that small spark had captured his interest more than the power with which she terrorized the O.Z. And he aided her in that.

Consequently, he is now burdened with regrets and sorrows, and Zero only feels humane enough to accept his eternal imprisonment as just desserts.

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_A/N: Writing Zero proved a bit difficult (but my muse hit me) and I unexpectedly ended up giving Zero a little backstory. Not sure about the end product, but the plot bunny has been satisfied...for now...Thanks for reading (and for putting up w/my A/N)! And am I the only one curious as to why there aren't many Zero/Az fics on this site? Anywho, PEACE._


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